


Six (Eight) Times

by clare_dragonfly



Category: Mansfield Park - Jane Austen
Genre: F/M, Infidelity, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-22
Updated: 2012-12-22
Packaged: 2017-11-21 23:50:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/603419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clare_dragonfly/pseuds/clare_dragonfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Married life is, perhaps, not all Fanny and Edmund hoped it would be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Six (Eight) Times

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amo_amare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amo_amare/gifts).



> Content warning: this fic contains some dubiously consensual sexual activity.

The first time is sweet, and warm, and loving.

At least, Fanny thinks this is what sweet and warm and loving feels like.

Edmund’s hands are warm and gentle and he keeps kissing her and kissing her. And she kisses him back, lips clinging, hands clinging. She keeps holding his hand and they smile at each other, alternately catching each other’s eye shyly and ducking their heads again to work at their clothing. They only let go of each other, the air cooling Fanny’s hand where it had grown damp against Edmund’s, when they have to in order to rid themselves of the rest of their clothing.

And then they’re standing naked in front of each other, and Fanny is trying not to blush but not succeeding, because Edmund is looking her all over and smiling a tiny, satisfied smile. And he’s—she doesn’t have words to describe it, but it makes her rub her thighs together, and makes her swallow when his hands circle her waist.

Then he lays her down on the bed and pushes inside, and it hurts, but not too terribly much. Except that it’s slow, so slow, and she wishes he would just get on with it and get the pain over with, but that’s not something a young lady ought to say, or a young clergyman ought to hear. So she bites her lip and waits and eventually the pain ends, and then it is pleasant, and then it is over.

He rolls off of her and curls his arm around her shoulders, but she sits up, uncomfortable and unable to articulate why. He whispers soothingly to her and eventually persuades her back down, but she lays awake for a long time listening to his snores.

—

Edmund thinks Fanny will enjoy it more the second time. He wants her to be happy; that’s all he wants. Except that he wants to be happy, too.

When he touches her, she yields to him, but yielding is all it is: she doesn’t seem excited or happy. And that is all right and proper—it is her duty, their duty, for procreation—but it is also for marital closeness, and they seem further apart than ever before now.

He kisses her as much as he can, and when she squeezes her eyes shut he thinks she’s enjoying herself, but she doesn’t respond to his caresses, and though he gets his pleasure it doesn’t seem like enough, somehow.

—

The third time is much like the first two. Fanny cannot complain, she will not complain, but she feels as though there is something missing, that there should be more.

She decides it must be children, she is waiting to become pregnant, so she tracks her cycle as carefully as she might, but when her menses come she feels no more or less satisfied than before. Just a little hollow.

She tries to find the place in her mind or on her body that made her rub her thighs together when she first saw Edmund unclothed, but perhaps it was only the surprise.

—

The fourth time is the same, the same, the same. It’s better than no marital relations at all, far better, and their household is lovely and cozy and nothing could make Edmund happier, but it is all the same.

—

The Crawfords are at a party that they attend. Henry is stiff and polite and cordial to Fanny, and she is polite and cordial back. She cannot be angry with him any more than she could have married him. He is not a bad man—at least, she hopes he is not a bad man. But he was not right for her.

He makes one disparaging comment about her husband, and she replies frostily. He apologizes and says something kinder, and she relents, but she is not sure she understands, and perhaps he sees that, because he raises his eyebrows and asks her about marital pleasure.

She has no idea how to answer. She is just deciding that she must not answer, that she must find Edmund or a corner where there might be embroidery to do or a card game to join, when Henry takes her hand and kisses the back of it with soft, wet lips.

“I’d like to teach you,” he whispers in her ear, and vanishes into the crowd.

—

Mary Crawford has not changed. She is curves and spice and smirks, entirely the opposite of his Fanny, and he is perfectly ready to not speak to her at all. What is she doing here, anyway? They were all wrong for each other, forever. Fanny is his perfect other half, as he always should have known.

“Are you tired of her yet?” Mary smirks, and presses his hand.

—

Fanny is tense that night. She grabs for Edmund and then pulls away, afraid she will offend him, afraid he will think her too forward. But he seems to like it, and he kisses her, deeper and deeper.

But he never kisses off the mark that Henry Crawford left on her hand, that she can feel burning all the way to her groin.

The fifth time isn’t any better.

—

Mary Crawford is always there. Edmund doesn’t understand how she is always there when he thinks of her. And maybe some of the times he’s only imagining her: so different from Fanny. So very, very different.

She whispers teases in his ears. She flicks out her tongue, lizardlike, to touch his skin. She presses her hip into his thigh, his hand against her breast. She leaves him aching and hard and filled with a want that Fanny cannot satisfy—or perhaps she will not, or perhaps he will not allow her to.

His precious, perfect, sweet little girl. The cousin who grew up next to him. The one who supports him in every endeavor, who never speaks out to contradict or argue with him.

His perfect Fanny.

And Mary, her opposite.

—

Fanny doesn’t know where Henry Crawford keeps coming from. And maybe she’s just imagining him half the time. But then he takes her hand and kisses the back of it, wetly, and it sends a shiver and a spike all through her and she knows she’s not imagining it this time.

He whispers something in her ear, and she doesn’t understand it, but what she does understand—with her body, not her mind—is the feeling that his warm lips and his soft tongue send through her. And then he goes under her skirts and finds that spot that makes her press her thighs together, but he pushes her thighs apart, and it’s all she can do not to scream—

And then she _does_ scream, she _must_ scream, and it’s like her blood is exploding, except with pleasure.

And Henry just winks at her and walks away and leaves her panting and swooning against the wall.

—

Mary pulls, and Edmund pulls the other way, until Mary stops pulling and pushes instead, pushes him down, and falls on top of him.

She fights him, wrestles with and against him, in the way that Fanny never could, ways that would never occur to Fanny. And he hates it and he loves it at the same time.

—

The sixth time is the same.

But it’s different, too.

And there can always be another time.


End file.
